Apparatus and method for low-latency invocation of accelerators

ABSTRACT

An apparatus and method are described for providing low-latency invocation of accelerators. For example, a processor according to one embodiment comprises: a command register for storing command data identifying a command to be executed; a result register to store a result of the command or data indicating a reason why the command could not be executed; execution logic to execute a plurality of instructions including an accelerator invocation instruction to invoke one or more accelerator commands; and one or more accelerators to read the command data from the command register and responsively attempt to execute the command identified by the command data.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates generally to the field of computer processors.More particularly, the invention relates to a generic, extensibleinstruction for low-latency invocation of accelerators.

2. Description of the Related Art

Invoking accelerators today requires going through a driver interface.In a system in which a hierarchical protection domain is used, thismeans switching to ring 0 and copying data to a different address space,which consumes significant time and processing resources. Due to thehigh latency, such accelerator interfaces are also inherentlyasynchronous. Programmable accelerators require the accelerated code tobe implemented in their own instruction set architecture (ISA).

Some current processor architectures attempt to address some of theseconcerns but provide only a coarse-grained asynchronous mechanism with ahigh latency between the accelerated task request and its execution. Inaddition, current architectures use a non-X86 ISA, which requires aseparate toolchain to generate and integrate the accelerated task withthe main x86 program.

In addition, current asynchronous hardware accelerators (e.g., GPUs)allow the accelerated task to execute unrelated to the applicationthread that triggered it. This allows the application thread to handleexceptions and/or interrupts without affecting the accelerated task, andeven allow the application thread to migrate between cores withoutimpacting the accelerated task location on the system.

Current synchronous hardware accelerators need to ensure thatinterrupts, exceptions, context switches and core migrations are stillfunctionally correct and ensure forward progress. This is done either by(1) ensuring the accelerator is short enough and doesn't cause anyexceptions, so that any interrupts are deferred until the accelerator isdone; (2) maintaining the accelerator's forward progress in existingarchitectural registers (e.g., REPMOV); or (3) defining newarchitectural registers to hold the accelerator status, and adding themto XSAVE/XRESTORE.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A better understanding of the present invention can be obtained from thefollowing detailed description in conjunction with the followingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary in-orderpipeline and an exemplary register renaming, out-of-orderissue/execution pipeline according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary embodiment ofan in-order architecture core and an exemplary register renaming,out-of-order issue/execution architecture core to be included in aprocessor according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a single core processor and a multicoreprocessor with integrated memory controller and graphics according toembodiments of the invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of a system in accordance with oneembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of a second system in accordance withan embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a third system in accordance withan embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of a system on a chip (SoC) inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram contrasting the use of a softwareinstruction converter to convert binary instructions in a sourceinstruction set to binary instructions in a target instruction setaccording to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 8A illustrates a processor architecture in which embodiments of theinvention may be implemented;

FIGS. 8B-C illustrate registers for storing data used to invokeaccelerators and review results;

FIGS. 9A-C illustrate method for invoking an accelerator in accordancewith one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 illustrates a method for processing complex instructions whichfail often;

FIG. 11 illustrates one embodiment of the invention which uses a stackfor storing accelerator state information.

FIGS. 12A and 12B are block diagrams illustrating a generic vectorfriendly instruction format and instruction templates thereof accordingto embodiments of the invention;

FIGS. 13A-D are a block diagrams illustrating an exemplary specificvector friendly instruction format according to embodiments of theinvention; and

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a register architecture according to oneembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 15 illustrates a computer system in accordance with certainembodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the embodiments of the invention described below. Itwill be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that theembodiments of the invention may be practiced without some of thesespecific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devicesare shown in block diagram form to avoid obscuring the underlyingprinciples of the embodiments of the invention.

Exemplary Processor Architectures and Data Types

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary in-orderpipeline and an exemplary register renaming, out-of-orderissue/execution pipeline according to embodiments of the invention. FIG.1B is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary embodiment of anin-order architecture core and an exemplary register renaming,out-of-order issue/execution architecture core to be included in aprocessor according to embodiments of the invention. The solid linedboxes in FIGS. 1A-B illustrate the in-order pipeline and in-order core,while the optional addition of the dashed lined boxes illustrates theregister renaming, out-of-order issue/execution pipeline and core. Giventhat the in-order aspect is a subset of the out-of-order aspect, theout-of-order aspect will be described.

In FIG. 1A, a processor pipeline 100 includes a fetch stage 102, alength decode stage 104, a decode stage 106, an allocation stage 108, arenaming stage 110, a scheduling (also known as a dispatch or issue)stage 112, a register read/memory read stage 114, an execute stage 116,a write back/memory write stage 118, an exception handling stage 122,and a commit stage 124.

FIG. 1B shows processor core 190 including a front end unit 130 coupledto an execution engine unit 150, and both are coupled to a memory unit170. The core 190 may be a reduced instruction set computing (RISC)core, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) core, a very longinstruction word (VLIW) core, or a hybrid or alternative core type. Asyet another option, the core 190 may be a special-purpose core, such as,for example, a network or communication core, compression engine,coprocessor core, general purpose computing graphics processing unit(GPGPU) core, graphics core, or the like.

The front end unit 130 includes a branch prediction unit 132 coupled toan instruction cache unit 134, which is coupled to an instructiontranslation lookaside buffer (TLB) 136, which is coupled to aninstruction fetch unit 138, which is coupled to a decode unit 140. Thedecode unit 140 (or decoder) may decode instructions, and generate as anoutput one or more micro-operations, microcode entry points,microinstructions, other instructions, or other control signals, whichare decoded from, or which otherwise reflect, or are derived from, theoriginal instructions. The decode unit 140 may be implemented usingvarious different mechanisms. Examples of suitable mechanisms include,but are not limited to, look-up tables, hardware implementations,programmable logic arrays (PLAs), microcode read only memories (ROMs),etc. In one embodiment, the core 190 includes a microcode ROM or othermedium that stores microcode for certain macroinstructions (e.g., indecode unit 140 or otherwise within the front end unit 130). The decodeunit 140 is coupled to a rename/allocator unit 152 in the executionengine unit 150.

The execution engine unit 150 includes the rename/allocator unit 152coupled to a retirement unit 154 and a set of one or more schedulerunit(s) 156. The scheduler unit(s) 156 represents any number ofdifferent schedulers, including reservations stations, centralinstruction window, etc. The scheduler unit(s) 156 is coupled to thephysical register file(s) unit(s) 158. Each of the physical registerfile(s) units 158 represents one or more physical register files,different ones of which store one or more different data types, such asscalar integer, scalar floating point, packed integer, packed floatingpoint, vector integer, vector floating point, status (e.g., aninstruction pointer that is the address of the next instruction to beexecuted), etc. In one embodiment, the physical register file(s) unit158 comprises a vector registers unit, a write mask registers unit, anda scalar registers unit. These register units may provide architecturalvector registers, vector mask registers, and general purpose registers.The physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 is overlapped by theretirement unit 154 to illustrate various ways in which registerrenaming and out-of-order execution may be implemented (e.g., using areorder buffer(s) and a retirement register file(s); using a futurefile(s), a history buffer(s), and a retirement register file(s); using aregister maps and a pool of registers; etc.). The retirement unit 154and the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 are coupled to theexecution cluster(s) 160. The execution cluster(s) 160 includes a set ofone or more execution units 162 and a set of one or more memory accessunits 164. The execution units 162 may perform various operations (e.g.,shifts, addition, subtraction, multiplication) and on various types ofdata (e.g., scalar floating point, packed integer, packed floatingpoint, vector integer, vector floating point). While some embodimentsmay include a number of execution units dedicated to specific functionsor sets of functions, other embodiments may include only one executionunit or multiple execution units that all perform all functions. Thescheduler unit(s) 156, physical register file(s) unit(s) 158, andexecution cluster(s) 160 are shown as being possibly plural becausecertain embodiments create separate pipelines for certain types ofdata/operations (e.g., a scalar integer pipeline, a scalar floatingpoint/packed integer/packed floating point/vector integer/vectorfloating point pipeline, and/or a memory access pipeline that each havetheir own scheduler unit, physical register file(s) unit, and/orexecution cluster—and in the case of a separate memory access pipeline,certain embodiments are implemented in which only the execution clusterof this pipeline has the memory access unit(s) 164). It should also beunderstood that where separate pipelines are used, one or more of thesepipelines may be out-of-order issue/execution and the rest in-order.

The set of memory access units 164 is coupled to the memory unit 170,which includes a data TLB unit 172 coupled to a data cache unit 174coupled to a level 2 (L2) cache unit 176. In one exemplary embodiment,the memory access units 164 may include a load unit, a store addressunit, and a store data unit, each of which is coupled to the data TLBunit 172 in the memory unit 170. The instruction cache unit 134 isfurther coupled to a level 2 (L2) cache unit 176 in the memory unit 170.The L2 cache unit 176 is coupled to one or more other levels of cacheand eventually to a main memory.

By way of example, the exemplary register renaming, out-of-orderissue/execution core architecture may implement the pipeline 100 asfollows: 1) the instruction fetch 138 performs the fetch and lengthdecoding stages 102 and 104; 2) the decode unit 140 performs the decodestage 106; 3) the rename/allocator unit 152 performs the allocationstage 108 and renaming stage 110; 4) the scheduler unit(s) 156 performsthe schedule stage 112; 5) the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 andthe memory unit 170 perform the register read/memory read stage 114; theexecution cluster 160 perform the execute stage 116; 6) the memory unit170 and the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 perform the writeback/memory write stage 118; 7) various units may be involved in theexception handling stage 122; and 8) the retirement unit 154 and thephysical register file(s) unit(s) 158 perform the commit stage 124.

The core 190 may support one or more instructions sets (e.g., the x86instruction set (with some extensions that have been added with newerversions); the MIPS instruction set of MIPS Technologies of Sunnyvale,Calif.; the ARM instruction set (with optional additional extensionssuch as NEON) of ARM Holdings of Sunnyvale, Calif.), including theinstruction(s) described herein. In one embodiment, the core 190includes logic to support a packed data instruction set extension (e.g.,AVX1, AVX2, and/or some form of the generic vector friendly instructionformat (U=0 and/or U=1), described below), thereby allowing theoperations used by many multimedia applications to be performed usingpacked data.

It should be understood that the core may support multithreading(executing two or more parallel sets of operations or threads), and maydo so in a variety of ways including time sliced multithreading,simultaneous multithreading (where a single physical core provides alogical core for each of the threads that physical core issimultaneously multithreading), or a combination thereof (e.g., timesliced fetching and decoding and simultaneous multithreading thereaftersuch as in the Intel® Hyperthreading technology).

While register renaming is described in the context of out-of-orderexecution, it should be understood that register renaming may be used inan in-order architecture. While the illustrated embodiment of theprocessor also includes separate instruction and data cache units134/174 and a shared L2 cache unit 176, alternative embodiments may havea single internal cache for both instructions and data, such as, forexample, a Level 1 (L1) internal cache, or multiple levels of internalcache. In some embodiments, the system may include a combination of aninternal cache and an external cache that is external to the core and/orthe processor. Alternatively, all of the cache may be external to thecore and/or the processor.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processor 200 that may have more than onecore, may have an integrated memory controller, and may have integratedgraphics according to embodiments of the invention. The solid linedboxes in FIG. 2 illustrate a processor 200 with a single core 202A, asystem agent 210, a set of one or more bus controller units 216, whilethe optional addition of the dashed lined boxes illustrates analternative processor 200 with multiple cores 202A-N, a set of one ormore integrated memory controller unit(s) 214 in the system agent unit210, and special purpose logic 208.

Thus, different implementations of the processor 200 may include: 1) aCPU with the special purpose logic 208 being integrated graphics and/orscientific (throughput) logic (which may include one or more cores), andthe cores 202A-N being one or more general purpose cores (e.g., generalpurpose in-order cores, general purpose out-of-order cores, acombination of the two); 2) a coprocessor with the cores 202A-N being alarge number of special purpose cores intended primarily for graphicsand/or scientific (throughput); and 3) a coprocessor with the cores202A-N being a large number of general purpose in-order cores. Thus, theprocessor 200 may be a general-purpose processor, coprocessor orspecial-purpose processor, such as, for example, a network orcommunication processor, compression engine, graphics processor, GPGPU(general purpose graphics processing unit), a high-throughput manyintegrated core (MIC) coprocessor (including 30 or more cores), embeddedprocessor, or the like. The processor may be implemented on one or morechips. The processor 200 may be a part of and/or may be implemented onone or more substrates using any of a number of process technologies,such as, for example, BiCMOS, CMOS, or NMOS.

The memory hierarchy includes one or more levels of cache within thecores, a set or one or more shared cache units 206, and external memory(not shown) coupled to the set of integrated memory controller units214. The set of shared cache units 206 may include one or more mid-levelcaches, such as level 2 (L2), level 3 (L3), level 4 (L4), or otherlevels of cache, a last level cache (LLC), and/or combinations thereof.While in one embodiment a ring based interconnect unit 212 interconnectsthe integrated graphics logic 208, the set of shared cache units 206,and the system agent unit 210/integrated memory controller unit(s) 214,alternative embodiments may use any number of well-known techniques forinterconnecting such units. In one embodiment, coherency is maintainedbetween one or more cache units 206 and cores 202-A-N.

In some embodiments, one or more of the cores 202A-N are capable ofmulti-threading. The system agent 210 includes those componentscoordinating and operating cores 202A-N. The system agent unit 210 mayinclude for example a power control unit (PCU) and a display unit. ThePCU may be or include logic and components needed for regulating thepower state of the cores 202A-N and the integrated graphics logic 208.The display unit is for driving one or more externally connecteddisplays.

The cores 202A-N may be homogenous or heterogeneous in terms ofarchitecture instruction set; that is, two or more of the cores 202A-Nmay be capable of execution the same instruction set, while others maybe capable of executing only a subset of that instruction set or adifferent instruction set.

FIGS. 3-6 are block diagrams of exemplary computer architectures. Othersystem designs and configurations known in the arts for laptops,desktops, handheld PCs, personal digital assistants, engineeringworkstations, servers, network devices, network hubs, switches, embeddedprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs), graphics devices, videogame devices, set-top boxes, micro controllers, cell phones, portablemedia players, hand held devices, and various other electronic devices,are also suitable. In general, a huge variety of systems or electronicdevices capable of incorporating a processor and/or other executionlogic as disclosed herein are generally suitable.

Referring now to FIG. 3, shown is a block diagram of a system 300 inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The system 300may include one or more processors 310, 315, which are coupled to acontroller hub 320. In one embodiment the controller hub 320 includes agraphics memory controller hub (GMCH) 390 and an Input/Output Hub (IOH)350 (which may be on separate chips); the GMCH 390 includes memory andgraphics controllers to which are coupled memory 340 and a coprocessor345; the IOH 350 is couples input/output (I/O) devices 360 to the GMCH390. Alternatively, one or both of the memory and graphics controllersare integrated within the processor (as described herein), the memory340 and the coprocessor 345 are coupled directly to the processor 310,and the controller hub 320 in a single chip with the IOH 350.

The optional nature of additional processors 315 is denoted in FIG. 3with broken lines. Each processor 310, 315 may include one or more ofthe processing cores described herein and may be some version of theprocessor 200.

The memory 340 may be, for example, dynamic random access memory (DRAM),phase change memory (PCM), or a combination of the two. For at least oneembodiment, the controller hub 320 communicates with the processor(s)310, 315 via a multi-drop bus, such as a frontside bus (FSB),point-to-point interface such as QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), orsimilar connection 395.

In one embodiment, the coprocessor 345 is a special-purpose processor,such as, for example, a high-throughput MIC processor, a network orcommunication processor, compression engine, graphics processor, GPGPU,embedded processor, or the like. In one embodiment, controller hub 320may include an integrated graphics accelerator.

There can be a variety of differences between the physical resources310, 315 in terms of a spectrum of metrics of merit includingarchitectural, microarchitectural, thermal, power consumptioncharacteristics, and the like.

In one embodiment, the processor 310 executes instructions that controldata processing operations of a general type. Embedded within theinstructions may be coprocessor instructions. The processor 310recognizes these coprocessor instructions as being of a type that shouldbe executed by the attached coprocessor 345. Accordingly, the processor310 issues these coprocessor instructions (or control signalsrepresenting coprocessor instructions) on a coprocessor bus or otherinterconnect, to coprocessor 345. Coprocessor(s) 345 accept and executethe received coprocessor instructions.

Referring now to FIG. 4, shown is a block diagram of a first morespecific exemplary system 400 in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention. As shown in FIG. 4, multiprocessor system 400 is apoint-to-point interconnect system, and includes a first processor 470and a second processor 480 coupled via a point-to-point interconnect450. Each of processors 470 and 480 may be some version of the processor200. In one embodiment of the invention, processors 470 and 480 arerespectively processors 310 and 315, while coprocessor 438 iscoprocessor 345. In another embodiment, processors 470 and 480 arerespectively processor 310 coprocessor 345.

Processors 470 and 480 are shown including integrated memory controller(IMC) units 472 and 482, respectively. Processor 470 also includes aspart of its bus controller units point-to-point (P-P) interfaces 476 and478; similarly, second processor 480 includes P-P interfaces 486 and488. Processors 470, 480 may exchange information via a point-to-point(P-P) interface 450 using P-P interface circuits 478, 488. As shown inFIG. 4, IMCs 472 and 482 couple the processors to respective memories,namely a memory 432 and a memory 434, which may be portions of mainmemory locally attached to the respective processors.

Processors 470, 480 may each exchange information with a chipset 490 viaindividual P-P interfaces 452, 454 using point to point interfacecircuits 476, 494, 486, 498. Chipset 490 may optionally exchangeinformation with the coprocessor 438 via a high-performance interface439. In one embodiment, the coprocessor 438 is a special-purposeprocessor, such as, for example, a high-throughput MIC processor, anetwork or communication processor, compression engine, graphicsprocessor, GPGPU, embedded processor, or the like.

A shared cache (not shown) may be included in either processor oroutside of both processors, yet connected with the processors via P-Pinterconnect, such that either or both processors' local cacheinformation may be stored in the shared cache if a processor is placedinto a low power mode.

Chipset 490 may be coupled to a first bus 416 via an interface 496. Inone embodiment, first bus 416 may be a Peripheral Component Interconnect(PCI) bus, or a bus such as a PCI Express bus or another thirdgeneration I/O interconnect bus, although the scope of the presentinvention is not so limited.

As shown in FIG. 4, various I/O devices 414 may be coupled to first bus416, along with a bus bridge 418 which couples first bus 416 to a secondbus 420. In one embodiment, one or more additional processor(s) 415,such as coprocessors, high-throughput MIC processors, GPGPU's,accelerators (such as, e.g., graphics accelerators or digital signalprocessing (DSP) units), field programmable gate arrays, or any otherprocessor, are coupled to first bus 416. In one embodiment, second bus420 may be a low pin count (LPC) bus. Various devices may be coupled toa second bus 420 including, for example, a keyboard and/or mouse 422,communication devices 427 and a storage unit 428 such as a disk drive orother mass storage device which may include instructions/code and data430, in one embodiment. Further, an audio I/O 424 may be coupled to thesecond bus 420. Note that other architectures are possible. For example,instead of the point-to-point architecture of FIG. 4, a system mayimplement a multi-drop bus or other such architecture.

Referring now to FIG. 5, shown is a block diagram of a second morespecific exemplary system 500 in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent invention. Like elements in FIGS. 4 and 5 bear like referencenumerals, and certain aspects of FIG. 4 have been omitted from FIG. 5 inorder to avoid obscuring other aspects of FIG. 5.

FIG. 5 illustrates that the processors 470, 480 may include integratedmemory and I/O control logic (“CL”) 472 and 482, respectively. Thus, theCL 472, 482 include integrated memory controller units and include I/Ocontrol logic. FIG. 5 illustrates that not only are the memories 432,434 coupled to the CL 472, 482, but also that I/O devices 514 are alsocoupled to the control logic 472, 482. Legacy I/O devices 515 arecoupled to the chipset 490.

Referring now to FIG. 6, shown is a block diagram of a SoC 600 inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Similar elementsin FIG. 2 bear like reference numerals. Also, dashed lined boxes areoptional features on more advanced SoCs. In FIG. 6, an interconnectunit(s) 602 is coupled to: an application processor 610 which includes aset of one or more cores 202A-N and shared cache unit(s) 206; a systemagent unit 210; a bus controller unit(s) 216; an integrated memorycontroller unit(s) 214; a set or one or more coprocessors 620 which mayinclude integrated graphics logic, an image processor, an audioprocessor, and a video processor; an static random access memory (SRAM)unit 630; a direct memory access (DMA) unit 632; and a display unit 640for coupling to one or more external displays. In one embodiment, thecoprocessor(s) 620 include a special-purpose processor, such as, forexample, a network or communication processor, compression engine,GPGPU, a high-throughput MIC processor, embedded processor, or the like.

Embodiments of the mechanisms disclosed herein may be implemented inhardware, software, firmware, or a combination of such implementationapproaches. Embodiments of the invention may be implemented as computerprograms or program code executing on programmable systems comprising atleast one processor, a storage system (including volatile andnon-volatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device,and at least one output device.

Program code, such as code 430 illustrated in FIG. 4, may be applied toinput instructions to perform the functions described herein andgenerate output information. The output information may be applied toone or more output devices, in known fashion. For purposes of thisapplication, a processing system includes any system that has aprocessor, such as, for example; a digital signal processor (DSP), amicrocontroller, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or amicroprocessor.

The program code may be implemented in a high level procedural or objectoriented programming language to communicate with a processing system.The program code may also be implemented in assembly or machinelanguage, if desired. In fact, the mechanisms described herein are notlimited in scope to any particular programming language. In any case,the language may be a compiled or interpreted language.

One or more aspects of at least one embodiment may be implemented byrepresentative instructions stored on a machine-readable medium whichrepresents various logic within the processor, which when read by amachine causes the machine to fabricate logic to perform the techniquesdescribed herein. Such representations, known as “IP cores” may bestored on a tangible, machine readable medium and supplied to variouscustomers or manufacturing facilities to load into the fabricationmachines that actually make the logic or processor.

Such machine-readable storage media may include, without limitation,non-transitory, tangible arrangements of articles manufactured or formedby a machine or device, including storage media such as hard disks, anyother type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, compact diskread-only memories (CD-ROMs), compact disk rewritable's (CD-RWs), andmagneto-optical disks, semiconductor devices such as read-only memories(ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) such as dynamic random accessmemories (DRAMs), static random access memories (SRAMs), erasableprogrammable read-only memories (EPROMs), flash memories, electricallyerasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), phase change memory(PCM), magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitablefor storing electronic instructions.

Accordingly, embodiments of the invention also include non-transitory,tangible machine-readable media containing instructions or containingdesign data, such as Hardware Description Language (HDL), which definesstructures, circuits, apparatuses, processors and/or system featuresdescribed herein. Such embodiments may also be referred to as programproducts.

In some cases, an instruction converter may be used to convert aninstruction from a source instruction set to a target instruction set.For example, the instruction converter may translate (e.g., using staticbinary translation, dynamic binary translation including dynamiccompilation), morph, emulate, or otherwise convert an instruction to oneor more other instructions to be processed by the core. The instructionconverter may be implemented in software, hardware, firmware, or acombination thereof. The instruction converter may be on processor, offprocessor, or part on and part off processor.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram contrasting the use of a software instructionconverter to convert binary instructions in a source instruction set tobinary instructions in a target instruction set according to embodimentsof the invention. In the illustrated embodiment, the instructionconverter is a software instruction converter, although alternativelythe instruction converter may be implemented in software, firmware,hardware, or various combinations thereof. FIG. 7 shows a program in ahigh level language 702 may be compiled using an x86 compiler 704 togenerate x86 binary code 706 that may be natively executed by aprocessor with at least one x86 instruction set core 716. The processorwith at least one x86 instruction set core 716 represents any processorthat can perform substantially the same functions as an Intel processorwith at least one x86 instruction set core by compatibly executing orotherwise processing (1) a substantial portion of the instruction set ofthe Intel x86 instruction set core or (2) object code versions ofapplications or other software targeted to run on an Intel processorwith at least one x86 instruction set core, in order to achievesubstantially the same result as an Intel processor with at least onex86 instruction set core. The x86 compiler 704 represents a compilerthat is operable to generate x86 binary code 706 (e.g., object code)that can, with or without additional linkage processing, be executed onthe processor with at least one x86 instruction set core 716. Similarly,FIG. 7 shows the program in the high level language 702 may be compiledusing an alternative instruction set compiler 708 to generatealternative instruction set binary code 710 that may be nativelyexecuted by a processor without at least one x86 instruction set core714 (e.g., a processor with cores that execute the MIPS instruction setof MIPS Technologies of Sunnyvale, Calif. and/or that execute the ARMinstruction set of ARM Holdings of Sunnyvale, Calif.). The instructionconverter 712 is used to convert the x86 binary code 706 into code thatmay be natively executed by the processor without an x86 instruction setcore 714. This converted code is not likely to be the same as thealternative instruction set binary code 710 because an instructionconverter capable of this is difficult to make; however, the convertedcode will accomplish the general operation and be made up ofinstructions from the alternative instruction set. Thus, the instructionconverter 712 represents software, firmware, hardware, or a combinationthereof that, through emulation, simulation or any other process, allowsa processor or other electronic device that does not have an x86instruction set processor or core to execute the x86 binary code 706.

Apparatus and Method for Efficiently Invoking Accelerators

One embodiment of the invention provides a generic, extensibleinstruction for low-latency invocation of synchronous (e.g., fixedfunction or programmable) accelerators (e.g., co-processors, functionalunits), referred to herein as an “XCALL” instruction. In one embodiment,the instruction is an x86 instruction. However, the underlyingprinciples of the invention are not limited to any instruction setarchitecture (ISA).

The instruction format according to one embodiment is: XCALLresult-register, command-register, param-register which identifies aresult register for storing results following executing of theinstruction, a command register for storing the specific command andassociated information to be executed by an accelerator in response tothe instruction, and a parameter register for storing parametersassociated with the invoked instruction, respectively. The specificinformation stored in each register according to one embodiment of theinvention is set forth below.

FIG. 8A illustrates a high level flow in which one or more processorclusters 804 perform general purpose processing operations and one ormore accelerator clusters 801 perform accelerator-specific operations.By way of example, the general purpose processor clusters 804 mayinclude execution logic within a processor core for executinginstructions (e.g., general purpose instructions such as x86instruction) including instructions which invoke commands on theaccelerator clusters 801. In one embodiment, the accelerators of theaccelerator cluster 801 are co-processors or functional units forperforming specialized data processing operations (e.g., vector/SIMDoperations, graphics operations, sort and loop operations, etc). Theunderlying principles of the invention, however, are not limited to anyparticular type of general purpose cores or accelerator cores.

The processor clusters 804 and accelerator clusters 801 may be logicalunits within the same processor chip or core. Alternatively, theprocessor clusters 804 may be on one chip and the accelerator clusters801 may be on a different chip (either in the same semiconductor packageor on different packages) and connected via a communication bus (e.g.,such as a PCI Express, Direct Media Interface (DMS) or other type ofcommunication bus). In yet another embodiment, some of the acceleratorclusters 801 may be on the same chip or core as the processor clusters804, while other accelerator clusters 801 may be on a different chip orcore. The embodiments of the invention described herein are not limitedto any particular chip/packaging configuration and supportimplementations with multiple different types of accelerator clusters.

As illustrated in FIG. 8A, a set of registers 830 are provided to enablecommunication of commands, parameters and results between the generalpurpose processor clusters 804 and the accelerator clusters 801 asdescribed herein. Specifically, in one embodiment, the register set 830includes the command registers, result registers, and parameterregisters specified by the XCALL instruction. The register set 830 maybe general purpose registers (GPRs) which are used for the purposesspecified below (e.g., storing commands, parameter data, and result datain response to the execution of an XCALL instruction). In an alternateembodiment, these are dedicated, application-specific registers.

In one embodiment, the clusters execute program code 806-807, 809-810,including an XCALL instruction which may cause one or more acceleratorsto be invoked 808. In response, control information specifying anoperation to be performed is provided to the accelerator 801 via acommand register (described below with respect to FIG. 8B) and/orparameter register within the register set 830. In response, theaccelerator may use one or more fixed function units 802 and/orprogrammable function units 803 to execute the command. Alternatively,the accelerator cluster 801 may respond with a busy indication,exception, or violation. The results are then provided to the processorclusters 804 via a result register within the register set 830(described below with respect to FIG. 8C). If the command wassuccessfully executed, the resulting data may be stored in the resultregister. By contrast, if the command was not successfully executed,then data indicating the reason for the failure may stored in the resultregister (and used, for example, to determine whether to re-attempt toexecute the command).

As indicated in FIG. 8A, one or more handlers 805, 806 may be executedon the processor clusters. In one embodiment, interrupts generated by ahandler may cause an invocation of the accelerator clusters, asillustrated.

FIG. 8B illustrates one embodiment of a command register structure. Asillustrated, the top 16 bits of the command register (identified asfields 811-815) contain the following data fields encoded with thespecified number of bits:

Reserved 811: 2 bit

Continue 812: 1 bit

Tickle 813: 1 bit

Private 814: 1 bit

Id 815: 11 bits

In one embodiment, the id uniquely identifies the accelerator to invoke.For example, as mentioned above, multiple accelerators may be includedwithin the accelerator cluster 801 and each of these accelerators may beuniquely identified by an accelerator id code.

In one embodiment, the “private” bit indicates whether the acceleratorbelongs to a particular group of known accelerators. For example, if theprivate bit is set to 0, the id may identify one of a universal set ofaccelerators (as defined by the assignee of the present patentapplication) such that the same id refers to the same accelerator acrossall computer systems/processors. If the private bit is set to 1, the ididentifies a proprietary or stock-keeping unit (SKU)-specificaccelerator. Thus, with the private bit set to 1, the same id may referto different accelerators in different systems.

In one embodiment, the low 48 bits of the command register (identifiedas field 816 in FIG. 8B), and all of the parameter register (not shown),contain application-specific data defined by the specific invokedaccelerator.

In one embodiment, when retired, the XCALL instruction sets the Z-bit inEFLAGS as follows. As is understood by those of skill in the art, EFLAGSis a status register in an x86 implementations which contains thecurrent state of the processor. The Z bit is set to 1 if the XCALLcompleted the execution of the requested accelerator. In this case, ifthe tickle bit was set to 1, the result register is not modified, and noactual work is done. If the tickle bit was set to 0, the result registeris set to an accelerator-specific value. The Z bit is set to 0 if theXCALL did not do any work. While the Z-bit is used to indicate whetherthe XCALL instruction was successful in this embodiment, a different bitmay be set while still complying with the underlying principles of theinvention.

In one embodiment, illustrated in FIG. 8C, the result register containsthe following data fields:

Reserved 817: 2 bits (always set to zero in one embodiment)

Permanent 818: 1 bit

Private 819: 1 bit

Failure Details 820: 60 bits

In one embodiment, the permanent bit 818 is used to indicate whether asubsequent call to the same XCALL will succeed. For example, thepermanent bit being set to 0 indicates that a future call of the sameXCALL may succeed (e.g., if the accelerator was busy serving another HWthread). By contrast, if there is no point in re-trying the same XCALL(e.g., if the specified accelerator does not exist in the current SKU,or if the specific command and/or parameter combination requested is notsupported by the accelerator in this SKU) then the permanent bit is setto 1.

In one embodiment, the low 60 bits of the result register are set toprovide additional data on the reason for the XCALL failure. In oneembodiment, the accelerator cluster 801 provides the information neededto update the result register as described above.

In one embodiment, if the private bit of the result register 819 is setto 1, these details have an accelerator-specific format. If the privatebit is set to 0, these details are provided in a predetermined,universal format (e.g., such as a format specified by the assignee ofthe present patent application). Exemplary failure result codes employedin one embodiment of the invention include:

Reserved bits in command register were not 0

Accelerator does not exist

Accelerator is busy serving another thread

The flowchart set forth in FIGS. 9A-C illustrates the operationsperformed by one embodiment of the invention. At 901, an XCALLinstruction is decoded. As a result, at 902, data related to the commandto be executed by an accelerator is sent to the command register and anynecessary parameters are sent to the parameter register. At 903, theprivate bit is set in the command register depending on whether theaccelerator belongs to a known group of accelerators or a proprietaryaccelerator (as described above). In addition, at 903, an ID code isupdated in the command register to identify the specific acceleratorwhich will execute the command.

At 904, the identified accelerator receives the command specified by theXCALL instruction and determines whether it can be executed. Forexample, the accelerator may currently be busy servicing anotherhardware thread and so may be unable to execute the current command.Additionally, if the current command and/or parameter combinationrequested is not supported by the accelerator, then the accelerator willnot be able to successfully execute the command. Alternatively, theaccelerator may successfully execute the command at 904.

If the command is successfully executed, then the process moves to FIG.9B where, at 906, the EFLAGS Z-bit is set equal to 0 to indicatesuccessful execution of the command (as discussed above). If the ticklebit of the command register was previously set to 1 (e.g., at operation902 in FIG. 9A), determined at 907, then at 908, the result register isleft unmodified. If the tickle bit was previously set to 0, then at 909,the tickle bit is set to an accelerator-specific value.

If the command specified by the XCALL instruction was not successfullyexecuted by the accelerator (determined at 905 in FIG. 9A), then at 910in FIG. 9C, the Z bit of EFLAGS is set equal to 1 (to indicate thefailure to execute the command). If it is anticipated that a futureattempt to execute the XCALL instruction will be successful, determinedat 911, then at 913, the permanent bit of the result register (818 inFIG. 8C) is set to 0. Additional data specifying the reason for thefailure may also be set in the failure details field 820 of the resultregister.

If at 911 it is anticipated that a future attempt to execute the XCALLinstruction will be unsuccessful, then at 912 the permanent bit is setequal to 1 (to indicate the permanence of the result) and additionaldata related to the failure to execute the XCALL instruction is set inthe details field 820 of the result register. In either case above, thedata in the details field 820 may be analyzed to determine the rootcause of the failure and/or to take steps to modify the instructionexecution.

As mentioned above, the control register and/or the parameter registermay be modified by the XCALL instruction. In addition, just like anormal call, an XCALL may consume stack area within the processor. Inone embodiment which uses an x86 architecture, during the XCALL (e.g.,when examined by an exception handler), the 64-bit stack pointerregister (RSP) is be updated to reflect the stack usage. On retirement,the RSP register is restored to its original value to reflect releasingthe used stack area. The amount of stack used depends on the specificaccelerator in use.

The invoked accelerator may examine and/or modify the value ofadditional registers and/or memory locations during the sequences ofoperations described herein. While the specific semantics may bedifferent for different accelerators, the underlying principles of theinvention remain the same.

In one embodiment, accelerators are configured to obey the following setof rules:

(1) If interrupts and/or exceptions are allowed during the XCALL, thenthe continue bit is set to 1 and the XCALL is re-issued once the handlercompletes and execution continues.

(2) The accelerator must ensure forward progress in the presence ofinterrupts and/or exceptions.

(3) Any state required by the accelerator to implement forward progressin the presence of interrupts and/or exceptions may be updated indocumented accelerator-specific location(s), which can be in one or moreof (a) the command and/or parameter registers; (b) other architecturalregisters; (c) the stack area; (d) additional memory locations. In allof the above cases, such a state must survive save and restoreoperations such as from a context switch (e.g.,XSAVE/context-switch/XRESTORE).

(4) An accelerator may choose to permanently reject an invocation if itis given an “invalid” command and/or parameter registers (e.g.,unsupported features, values that exceed hardware limitations, . . .etc.). However, if an accelerator has accepted an invocation, it isresponsible for completing the request and providing results.

(5) Programmable accelerators invoke user code, which may be restrictedin accelerator-specific ways (represented by programmable functions unit803 in FIG. 8A). For example, a “sort” accelerator may invoke thecomparison function, and a “loop” accelerator may invoke the loop body.If the user code does not obey the expected restrictions (e.g., it triesto enter ring 0 when a ring-based hierarchical protection domain isused), then the accelerator will trigger an exception (specifically,UD), after saving its state as usual.

(6) The exception handler may choose to (a) complete thepartially-evaluated accelerator in non-accelerated software, based onthe saved state; (b) emulate the unsupported instruction, and re-issuethe XCALL (requiring tweaking the saved state so the unsupportedoperation is not re-tried); or (c) terminate the execution. Simplytrying to re-issue the XCALL without any modifications will simplyre-trigger the exception (as expected for UD).

The embodiments of the invention described herein provide a standardmechanism which may be incorporated into an instruction set architecture(ISA) such as an x86 ISA for invoking accelerators. In contrast to thetechniques described in the background of the present patentapplication, the accelerator invocation techniques described hereinallow for fine-grained, low-latency synchronous accelerators thatnaturally share as much (or as little) of the core's resources such asmemory translation, registers, caches, etc. Programmable XCALLaccelerators allow the user to accelerate normal x86 code (e.g. loopsand sorting), which is an integral part of the main x86 program and doesnot require a separate toolchain.

In addition, current accelerator interfaces are designed for a specificaccelerator, while the embodiments of the invention described herein areextensible, allowing the streamlined provision of specific acceleratorsfor specific market segments, as well as “universal” accelerators acrossall market segments. Accelerator invocation can be done at low latenciesand without data copying overheads, allowing the ecosystem of suchaccelerators to cover functionality that was impractical to providepreviously. It also becomes possible to tailor SKUs with acceleratorsfor specific markets (embedded systems, image processing, HPC server,etcs), maintaining the tight integration with existing ISAs such as x86.

The XCALL interface described herein also opens up the ability to extendCPUs to cover functionality that was not previously accessible withoutstepping outside of the CPU ISA and toolchain (the x86 ISA forprocessors designed by the assignee of the present patent application).For example, using the techniques described herein programmableaccelerators 803 such as programmable loop accelerators (SKMD) and sortaccelerators may be provided, as well as fixed-function accelerators 802such as those which perform Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), texturesampling, and various other functions.

Fast Failure Handling of Complex ISA Instructions

Currently, failing instructions don't have a way to provide additionaldetails about the failure, except by way of dedicated flag bits and/ordedicated registers typically for use in exception handlers. Theembodiments of the invention described below provide a new “fastfailure” behavior for instructions. In this new behavior, an instructionmay return a success/fail indication (e.g., inside a flags register suchas EFLAGS or some other register). In addition, in one embodiment, theinstruction writes additional failure details in a normal destinationregister upon detection of a failure. This allows the application codeto test the instruction success/failure and respond to certain failuremodes without wasting processing resources and time which would resultfrom the invocation of an exception handler or switching to a low leveldomain on a system which employs hierarchical protection domains (e.g.,ring 0).

The proposed new trade-off point for instruction failure handling isselected for a certain class of instructions which are bothfailure-prone and have complex failure modes, such as the XCALLinstruction described above. However, it is not suitable for otherclasses of operations such as division by zero (DIV) which are not proneto failure, or for failure-prone operations such as locks that have asimple failure mode.

One embodiment of the invention classifies instructions into one of thefollowing groups:

(1) Always succeed. For example, every instance of an instruction whichadds the values in two registers is expected to succeed. In oneembodiment of the invention, no failure handling is provided forinstructions in this category.

(2) Expected to succeed most of the time. For example, an instructionwhich divides the values stored in two registers will normally succeed.It will only fail as the result of a divide by zero error. In oneembodiment of the invention, this class of instructions will trigger anexception handler on failure. The exception handler can then examinededicated registers such as x86 control registers (CR) containingadditional failure information to determine the correct course of action(e.g., CR2 for page faults). The exception handler is separated from thenormal application code, keeping the application code clean anduncontaminated by the failure-handling logic.

(3) Expected to fail “often” with a simple failure mode. In oneembodiment, for these types of instructions, bit(s) in flags and/ordestination register(s) are set to indicate failure, but no details areprovided. One example is an instruction which attempts to set locksdata. For these simple failure modes, the application code itselfexplicitly handles recovery (without requiring an exception handler).

(4) Expected to fail “often” with a complex failure mode. For this classof instructions, processing systems currently need to resort to anexception handler to access dedicated registers for examining thefailure details. For instructions that fail “often” and have complexfailure modes, the embodiments of the invention allows setting bit(s) inflags and/or destination register(s) to indicate failure, and also setadditional bit(s) in destination register(s) to specify the details ofthe failure, allowing the application code to take the correct actionswithout resorting to an exception handler.

This reduces the cost of failure to a minimum (at the cost of having totest the result of each instruction). It also allows the application totrivially tailor its failure-handling logic to the current context, asopposed to using a hard-to-change universal exception handler (at thecost of having to explicitly invoke this logic at any invocation point).

By way of example, this behavior is described above for the XCALLinstruction. In the example provided in FIGS. 9A-C, the XCALLinstruction specifies a command to be executed by a particularaccelerator. In response, the accelerator may execute the command andprovide the results in the result register (which, as discussed may be ageneral purpose register). Alternatively, the accelerator may fail toexecute the command for a variety of reasons and update the resultregister with the reasons for the failure. For example, the acceleratormay currently be busy servicing another hardware thread and so may beunable to execute the current command. In this case, the XCALLinstruction may be successfully executed at a later time when theaccelerator is no longer busy. As such, in response to the failureindication, the permanent bit 818 is set to 0 in the result register toindicate that a second attempt may be made to execute the XCALLinstruction.

In contrast, if the current command and/or parameter combinationrequested is not supported by the accelerator, then the accelerator willnever be able to successfully execute the command. As such, in responseto the failure indication, the permanent bit 818 is set to 1 in theresult register to indicate that a second attempt will not result insuccessful execution of the XCALL instruction.

Subsequent program code may then read the result register to determinehow to proceed. For example, if the permanent bit is set to 0, it mayagain attempt to execute the XCALL instruction while if the permanentbit is set to 1, it may not attempt to execute the XCALL instruction.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart which illustrates one embodiment of the inventionfor implementing this mode of operation. The operations specified in theflowchart may be implemented by logic within an execution unit. At 1001,an attempt is made to execute a first instruction and, at 1002, anattempt is made to execute a second instruction. If the firstinstruction was successfully executed, determined at 1003, then at 1004,the second instruction is also successfully executed. For example, thesecond instruction may rely on the results of the first instructionwritten to a register (such as the result register mentioned above).

If the first instruction was not successfully executed then, at 1005,the second instruction also fails to execute. In contrast to priorimplementations, the complex failure details are examined at 1006without invoking an exception handler so that a failure evaluation canbe performed by the application program code. In particular, asubsequent instruction may be executed to read the results from theresult register and determine whether a new attempt should be made toexecute the first instruction. If the results of the failure indicatethat a second attempt would not work, then the second attempt may beprevented, saving time and processor resources. If the results indicatethat a second attempt may be successful, then a second attempt toexecute the first instruction may be made. While these specific examplesare provided for ease of explanation, it should be noted that theunderlying principles of the invention are not limited to these specificdetails.

Thus, in the embodiments of the invention described herein, aninstruction's normal destination registers are used for a dual role;they hold the result in the case of normal execution, and failuredetails if the instruction fails. This is different from currentimplementations where there are dedicated registers for computationresults and for failure results and/or where an exception handler mustbe invoked. These techniques may be applied to all providers ofprogrammable processors (CPUs, DSPs, GPUs, . . . ).

The use of fast failure handling of complex instructions opens up thepossibility of implementing instructions such as XCALL which wouldotherwise be difficult to define as an efficient instruction. Processorsusing such efficient instructions will realize improved performance andreduced development costs.

Task Switchable Synchronous HW Accelerators

Synchronous hardware accelerators need to ensure forward progress incase of exceptions; for this they need to save their state in a locationthat survives save and restore operations (such as XSAVE/XRESTORE in x86architectures). One embodiment of the invention enables this operationby extending the save/restore area in order to support new hardwareaccelerators (such as those described above and illustrated in FIG. 8A).

One embodiment of the invention uses the stack area in memory forstoring the intermediate state of synchronous hardware accelerators toallow for a robust exception model, including handling task switchingand core migration, without operating system (OS) enabling. Inparticular, the embodiments of the invention allow accelerators such assynchronous hardware accelerators to save their state in the memorystack, and safely restore their state following various types ofprocessor events (e.g., such as exceptions managed by an exceptionhandler as described below).

In one embodiment, the hardware accelerator invocation is treated as aCALL instruction in which the accelerator may consume an area on theuser's stack to maintain its state. When an exception and/or interruptforces the accelerator to pause, this state is automatically persistent,and is available when the accelerator is resumed following the exceptionhandler, context switch and/or core migration. In the latter case, thehardware accelerator resuming the computation may be a different one(associated with the new core). In such a case, the new core may accessthe saved state within the stack (e.g., from memory or a shared cache).

In one embodiment, the synchronous accelerator is treated like a libraryfunction which is invoked, uses the stack following invocation, and thenreleases this portion of the stack when completed (behaving like afunction call). In one embodiment, when the accelerator is invoked, thestack pointer is moved to work with the invoked accelerator's localvariables. When the invocation is complete, the stack pointer isreturned to the place that it originally was so that caller can startwhere it left off when the call occurred. In one embodiment, in the eventhat an exception handler is invoked, the program's stack pointer isadjusted to reflect the accelerator's stack usage, thereby ensuring thatthe exception handler does not modify the accelerator's save area.

One embodiment of the invention is illustrated in FIG. 11 which shows ahardware stack 1150 in memory, an application hardware thread 1151, andan accelerator thread 1152. The particular stack 1150 illustrated inFIG. 11 includes a caller stack area 1120 for storing data associatedwith the execution of the application hardware thread 1151; anaccelerator save area 1130 for storing data associated with theexecution of the accelerator thread 1152; and an exception handler stackarea 1140 for storing data associated with the execution of an exceptionhandler 1105.

In one embodiment, during the execution of the application hardwarethread, an accelerator function is invoked. In response, the stackpointer is adjusted to point to the top of the accelerator save area1130 and the entries in the translation lookaside buffer (TLB)associated with the accelerator save area 1130 are locked at 1101. Onereason for doing so is that if an exception occurs and the acceleratorsaves its state (be it on the stack or in a another designated memoryarea), it is desirable to avoid an additional page fault which wouldconvert the original exception into a double one. One way to avoid thisis to lock the TLB page entry (or entries) for the accelerator save area1130 when the accelerator begins work, thereby ensuring that no suchpage fault will be generated. The OS can still mark the page asunavailable, but it is forced to defer physically evicting it until thenext context switch (when the thread isn't running at all, and theaccelerator state is safely saved). On return from the context switch,the accelerator re-acquires the TLB page entries (which may point at adifferent physical locations), load the state, and continue. A largeaccelerator save area may span multiple TLB pages (in extreme cases,dozens of 4k pages). The number of TLB entries that need to be lockedcan be reduced by using large pages (e.g., 64k pages).

At 1102, the accelerator performs operations based on to the commandwhich it is executing and, at 1103, saves its current state to theaccelerator save area 1130 within the stack 1150. It then unlocks theTLB 1104 (which had been locked at 1101 to avoid an additional pagefault as described above). As illustrated, an exception event isdetected, which is passed to an exception handler 1105 executed withinthe application hardware thread 1151. During execution, the executionhandler may read/write using a portion 1140 of the stack 1150 (i.e., ituses the exception handler stack 1140 to store intermediate stateinformation during the handling of the exception condition). Once theexception handler has completed its operations, it allows theaccelerator thread 1152 to resume.

At 1106 the accelerator again locks the TLB (for the same reasons asstated above) and, at 1107, it loads the state which had previously beenstored to the accelerator save area 1130. Note that, at this stage, theaccelerator thread 1152 may, in fact, be executed on different core orprocessor than the first portion of the accelerator thread (operations1101-1104). In such a case, it may simply load the saved acceleratorstate from the accelerator save area 1130 which may be physicallylocated in a shared memory or cache. It then completes it's thread ofexecution at 1108, unlocks the TLB at 1109 and completes at 1110.Control is then transferred back to the application hardware thread1151, which resets the stack pointer to the top of the accelerator savearea 1130 (i.e., where it left off when it began execution of theaccelerator thread 1152).

It will be appreciated that various modifications to the specificdetails provide above may be implemented while still complying with theunderlying principles of the invention. For example, in one embodiment,a specific memory region may be designated for the accelerator to holdits state in (rather than using the stack). In this case there is noneed to modify the program's stack pointer for the exception handler.

In either embodiment, the techniques described herein allow acceleratorsto work transparently when the invoking thread is migrated between(symmetrical) cores; the accelerator on one core saves its state tomemory, and when the thread is scheduled on another core, theaccelerator there loads the data from memory (e.g., via a shared commoncache for efficiency). Thus, the embodiments of the invention describedherein allow an accelerator to transparently save its state and ensureforward progress in the presence of exceptions, context switches and/orcore migrations, without OS enabling (e.g., without modifyingXSAVE/XRESTORE and/or adding architectural registers). This, in turn,permits the use of accelerator forms that previously required theaddition of new architectural registers and OS enabling via modifiedXSAVE. Processors using such accelerators realize improved performanceand reduced development costs.

Exemplary Instruction Formats

Embodiments of the instruction(s) described herein may be embodied indifferent formats. Additionally, exemplary systems, architectures, andpipelines are detailed below. Embodiments of the instruction(s) may beexecuted on such systems, architectures, and pipelines, but are notlimited to those detailed.

A vector friendly instruction format is an instruction format that issuited for vector instructions (e.g., there are certain fields specificto vector operations). While embodiments are described in which bothvector and scalar operations are supported through the vector friendlyinstruction format, alternative embodiments use only vector operationsthe vector friendly instruction format.

FIGS. 12A-12B are block diagrams illustrating a generic vector friendlyinstruction format and instruction templates thereof according toembodiments of the invention. FIG. 12A is a block diagram illustrating ageneric vector friendly instruction format and class A instructiontemplates thereof according to embodiments of the invention; while FIG.12B is a block diagram illustrating the generic vector friendlyinstruction format and class B instruction templates thereof accordingto embodiments of the invention. Specifically, a generic vector friendlyinstruction format 1100 for which are defined class A and class Binstruction templates, both of which include no memory access 1105instruction templates and memory access 1120 instruction templates. Theterm generic in the context of the vector friendly instruction formatrefers to the instruction format not being tied to any specificinstruction set.

While embodiments of the invention will be described in which the vectorfriendly instruction format supports the following: a 64 byte vectoroperand length (or size) with 32 bit (4 byte) or 64 bit (8 byte) dataelement widths (or sizes) (and thus, a 64 byte vector consists of either16 doubleword-size elements or alternatively, 8 quadword-size elements);a 64 byte vector operand length (or size) with 16 bit (2 byte) or 8 bit(1 byte) data element widths (or sizes); a 32 byte vector operand length(or size) with 32 bit (4 byte), 64 bit (8 byte), 16 bit (2 byte), or 8bit (1 byte) data element widths (or sizes); and a 16 byte vectoroperand length (or size) with 32 bit (4 byte), 64 bit (8 byte), 16 bit(2 byte), or 8 bit (1 byte) data element widths (or sizes); alternativeembodiments may support more, less and/or different vector operand sizes(e.g., 256 byte vector operands) with more, less, or different dataelement widths (e.g., 128 bit (16 byte) data element widths).

The class A instruction templates in FIG. 12A include: 1) within the nomemory access 1105 instruction templates there is shown a no memoryaccess, full round control type operation 1110 instruction template anda no memory access, data transform type operation 1115 instructiontemplate; and 2) within the memory access 1120 instruction templatesthere is shown a memory access, temporal 1125 instruction template and amemory access, non-temporal 1130 instruction template. The class Binstruction templates in FIG. 11B include: 1) within the no memoryaccess 1105 instruction templates there is shown a no memory access,write mask control, partial round control type operation 1112instruction template and a no memory access, write mask control, vsizetype operation 1117 instruction template; and 2) within the memoryaccess 1120 instruction templates there is shown a memory access, writemask control 1127 instruction template.

The generic vector friendly instruction format 1100 includes thefollowing fields listed below in the order illustrated in FIGS. 12A-12B.

Format field 1140—a specific value (an instruction format identifiervalue) in this field uniquely identifies the vector friendly instructionformat, and thus occurrences of instructions in the vector friendlyinstruction format in instruction streams. As such, this field isoptional in the sense that it is not needed for an instruction set thathas only the generic vector friendly instruction format.

Base operation field 1142—its content distinguishes different baseoperations.

Register index field 1144—its content, directly or through addressgeneration, specifies the locations of the source and destinationoperands, be they in registers or in memory. These include a sufficientnumber of bits to select N registers from a PxQ (e.g. 32×512, 16×128,32×1024, 64×1024) register file. While in one embodiment N may be up tothree sources and one destination register, alternative embodiments maysupport more or less sources and destination registers (e.g., maysupport up to two sources where one of these sources also acts as thedestination, may support up to three sources where one of these sourcesalso acts as the destination, may support up to two sources and onedestination).

Modifier field 1146—its content distinguishes occurrences ofinstructions in the generic vector instruction format that specifymemory access from those that do not; that is, between no memory access1105 instruction templates and memory access 1120 instruction templates.Memory access operations read and/or write to the memory hierarchy (insome cases specifying the source and/or destination addresses usingvalues in registers), while non-memory access operations do not (e.g.,the source and destinations are registers). While in one embodiment thisfield also selects between three different ways to perform memoryaddress calculations, alternative embodiments may support more, less, ordifferent ways to perform memory address calculations.

Augmentation operation field 1150—its content distinguishes which one ofa variety of different operations to be performed in addition to thebase operation. This field is context specific. In one embodiment of theinvention, this field is divided into a class field 1168, an alpha field1152, and a beta field 1154. The augmentation operation field 1150allows common groups of operations to be performed in a singleinstruction rather than 2, 3, or 4 instructions.

Scale field 1160—its content allows for the scaling of the index field'scontent for memory address generation (e.g., for address generation thatuses 2^(scale)*index+base).

Displacement Field 1162A—its content is used as part of memory addressgeneration (e.g., for address generation that uses2^(scale)*index+base+displacement).

Displacement Factor Field 1162B (note that the juxtaposition ofdisplacement field 1162A directly over displacement factor field 1162Bindicates one or the other is used)—its content is used as part ofaddress generation; it specifies a displacement factor that is to bescaled by the size of a memory access (N)—where N is the number of bytesin the memory access (e.g., for address generation that uses2^(scale)*index+base+scaled displacement). Redundant low-order bits areignored and hence, the displacement factor field's content is multipliedby the memory operands total size (N) in order to generate the finaldisplacement to be used in calculating an effective address. The valueof N is determined by the processor hardware at runtime based on thefull opcode field 1174 (described herein) and the data manipulationfield 1154C. The displacement field 1162A and the displacement factorfield 1162B are optional in the sense that they are not used for the nomemory access 1105 instruction templates and/or different embodimentsmay implement only one or none of the two.

Data element width field 1164—its content distinguishes which one of anumber of data element widths is to be used (in some embodiments for allinstructions; in other embodiments for only some of the instructions).This field is optional in the sense that it is not needed if only onedata element width is supported and/or data element widths are supportedusing some aspect of the opcodes.

Write mask field 1170—its content controls, on a per data elementposition basis, whether that data element position in the destinationvector operand reflects the result of the base operation andaugmentation operation. Class A instruction templates supportmerging-writemasking, while class B instruction templates support bothmerging- and zeroing-writemasking. When merging, vector masks allow anyset of elements in the destination to be protected from updates duringthe execution of any operation (specified by the base operation and theaugmentation operation); in other one embodiment, preserving the oldvalue of each element of the destination where the corresponding maskbit has a 0. In contrast, when zeroing vector masks allow any set ofelements in the destination to be zeroed during the execution of anyoperation (specified by the base operation and the augmentationoperation); in one embodiment, an element of the destination is set to 0when the corresponding mask bit has a 0 value. A subset of thisfunctionality is the ability to control the vector length of theoperation being performed (that is, the span of elements being modified,from the first to the last one); however, it is not necessary that theelements that are modified be consecutive. Thus, the write mask field1170 allows for partial vector operations, including loads, stores,arithmetic, logical, etc. While embodiments of the invention aredescribed in which the write mask field's 1170 content selects one of anumber of write mask registers that contains the write mask to be used(and thus the write mask field's 1170 content indirectly identifies thatmasking to be performed), alternative embodiments instead or additionalallow the mask write field's 1170 content to directly specify themasking to be performed.

Immediate field 1172—its content allows for the specification of animmediate. This field is optional in the sense that is it not present inan implementation of the generic vector friendly format that does notsupport immediate and it is not present in instructions that do not usean immediate.

Class field 1168—its content distinguishes between different classes ofinstructions. With reference to FIGS. 11A-B, the contents of this fieldselect between class A and class B instructions. In FIGS. 11A-B, roundedcorner squares are used to indicate a specific value is present in afield (e.g., class A 1168A and class B 1168B for the class field 1168respectively in FIGS. 11A-B).

Instruction Templates of Class A

In the case of the non-memory access 1105 instruction templates of classA, the alpha field 1152 is interpreted as an RS field 1152A, whosecontent distinguishes which one of the different augmentation operationtypes are to be performed (e.g., round 1152A.1 and data transform1152A.2 are respectively specified for the no memory access, round typeoperation 1110 and the no memory access, data transform type operation1115 instruction templates), while the beta field 1154 distinguisheswhich of the operations of the specified type is to be performed. In theno memory access 1105 instruction templates, the scale field 1160, thedisplacement field 1162A, and the displacement scale field 1162B are notpresent.

No-Memory Access Instruction Templates—Full Round Control Type Operation

In the no memory access full round control type operation 1110instruction template, the beta field 1154 is interpreted as a roundcontrol field 1154A, whose content(s) provide static rounding. While inthe described embodiments of the invention the round control field 1154Aincludes a suppress all floating point exceptions (SAE) field 1156 and around operation control field 1158, alternative embodiments may supportmay encode both these concepts into the same field or only have one orthe other of these concepts/fields (e.g., may have only the roundoperation control field 1158).

SAE field 1156—its content distinguishes whether or not to disable theexception event reporting; when the SAE field's 1156 content indicatessuppression is enabled, a given instruction does not report any kind offloating-point exception flag and does not raise any floating pointexception handler.

Round operation control field 1158—its content distinguishes which oneof a group of rounding operations to perform (e.g., Round-up,Round-down, Round-towards-zero and Round-to-nearest). Thus, the roundoperation control field 1158 allows for the changing of the roundingmode on a per instruction basis. In one embodiment of the inventionwhere a processor includes a control register for specifying roundingmodes, the round operation control field's 1150 content overrides thatregister value.

No Memory Access Instruction Templates—Data Transform Type Operation

In the no memory access data transform type operation 1115 instructiontemplate, the beta field 1154 is interpreted as a data transform field1154B, whose content distinguishes which one of a number of datatransforms is to be performed (e.g., no data transform, swizzle,broadcast).

In the case of a memory access 1120 instruction template of class A, thealpha field 1152 is interpreted as an eviction hint field 1152B, whosecontent distinguishes which one of the eviction hints is to be used (inFIG. 12A, temporal 1152B.1 and non-temporal 1152B.2 are respectivelyspecified for the memory access, temporal 1125 instruction template andthe memory access, non-temporal 1130 instruction template), while thebeta field 1154 is interpreted as a data manipulation field 1154C, whosecontent distinguishes which one of a number of data manipulationoperations (also known as primitives) is to be performed (e.g., nomanipulation; broadcast; up conversion of a source; and down conversionof a destination). The memory access 1120 instruction templates includethe scale field 1160, and optionally the displacement field 1162A or thedisplacement scale field 1162B.

Vector memory instructions perform vector loads from and vector storesto memory, with conversion support. As with regular vector instructions,vector memory instructions transfer data from/to memory in a dataelement-wise fashion, with the elements that are actually transferred isdictated by the contents of the vector mask that is selected as thewrite mask.

Memory Access Instruction Templates—Temporal

Temporal data is data likely to be reused soon enough to benefit fromcaching. This is, however, a hint, and different processors mayimplement it in different ways, including ignoring the hint entirely.

Memory Access Instruction Templates—Non-Temporal

Non-temporal data is data unlikely to be reused soon enough to benefitfrom caching in the 1st-level cache and should be given priority foreviction. This is, however, a hint, and different processors mayimplement it in different ways, including ignoring the hint entirely.

Instruction Templates of Class B

In the case of the instruction templates of class B, the alpha field1152 is interpreted as a write mask control (Z) field 1152C, whosecontent distinguishes whether the write masking controlled by the writemask field 1170 should be a merging or a zeroing.

In the case of the non-memory access 1105 instruction templates of classB, part of the beta field 1154 is interpreted as an RL field 1157A,whose content distinguishes which one of the different augmentationoperation types are to be performed (e.g., round 1157A.1 and vectorlength (VSIZE) 1157A.2 are respectively specified for the no memoryaccess, write mask control, partial round control type operation 1112instruction template and the no memory access, write mask control, VSIZEtype operation 1117 instruction template), while the rest of the betafield 1154 distinguishes which of the operations of the specified typeis to be performed. In the no memory access 1105 instruction templates,the scale field 1160, the displacement field 1162A, and the displacementscale field 1162B are not present.

In the no memory access, write mask control, partial round control typeoperation 1110 instruction template, the rest of the beta field 1154 isinterpreted as a round operation field 1159A and exception eventreporting is disabled (a given instruction does not report any kind offloating-point exception flag and does not raise any floating pointexception handler).

Round operation control field 1159A—just as round operation controlfield 1158, its content distinguishes which one of a group of roundingoperations to perform (e.g., Round-up, Round-down, Round-towards-zeroand Round-to-nearest). Thus, the round operation control field 1159Aallows for the changing of the rounding mode on a per instruction basis.In one embodiment of the invention where a processor includes a controlregister for specifying rounding modes, the round operation controlfield's 1150 content overrides that register value.

In the no memory access, write mask control, VSIZE type operation 1117instruction template, the rest of the beta field 1154 is interpreted asa vector length field 1159B, whose content distinguishes which one of anumber of data vector lengths is to be performed on (e.g., 128, 256, or512 byte).

In the case of a memory access 1120 instruction template of class B,part of the beta field 1154 is interpreted as a broadcast field 1157B,whose content distinguishes whether or not the broadcast type datamanipulation operation is to be performed, while the rest of the betafield 1154 is interpreted the vector length field 1159B. The memoryaccess 1120 instruction templates include the scale field 1160, andoptionally the displacement field 1162A or the displacement scale field1162B.

With regard to the generic vector friendly instruction format 1100, afull opcode field 1174 is shown including the format field 1140, thebase operation field 1142, and the data element width field 1164. Whileone embodiment is shown where the full opcode field 1174 includes all ofthese fields, the full opcode field 1174 includes less than all of thesefields in embodiments that do not support all of them. The full opcodefield 1174 provides the operation code (opcode).

The augmentation operation field 1150, the data element width field1164, and the write mask field 1170 allow these features to be specifiedon a per instruction basis in the generic vector friendly instructionformat.

The combination of write mask field and data element width field createtyped instructions in that they allow the mask to be applied based ondifferent data element widths.

The various instruction templates found within class A and class B arebeneficial in different situations. In some embodiments of theinvention, different processors or different cores within a processormay support only class A, only class B, or both classes. For instance, ahigh performance general purpose out-of-order core intended forgeneral-purpose computing may support only class B, a core intendedprimarily for graphics and/or scientific (throughput) computing maysupport only class A, and a core intended for both may support both (ofcourse, a core that has some mix of templates and instructions from bothclasses but not all templates and instructions from both classes iswithin the purview of the invention). Also, a single processor mayinclude multiple cores, all of which support the same class or in whichdifferent cores support different class. For instance, in a processorwith separate graphics and general purpose cores, one of the graphicscores intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific computing maysupport only class A, while one or more of the general purpose cores maybe high performance general purpose cores with out of order executionand register renaming intended for general-purpose computing thatsupport only class B. Another processor that does not have a separategraphics core, may include one more general purpose in-order orout-of-order cores that support both class A and class B. Of course,features from one class may also be implement in the other class indifferent embodiments of the invention. Programs written in a high levellanguage would be put (e.g., just in time compiled or staticallycompiled) into an variety of different executable forms, including: 1) aform having only instructions of the class(es) supported by the targetprocessor for execution; or 2) a form having alternative routineswritten using different combinations of the instructions of all classesand having control flow code that selects the routines to execute basedon the instructions supported by the processor which is currentlyexecuting the code.

FIG. 13A is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary specific vectorfriendly instruction format according to embodiments of the invention.FIG. 13A shows a specific vector friendly instruction format 1200 thatis specific in the sense that it specifies the location, size,interpretation, and order of the fields, as well as values for some ofthose fields. The specific vector friendly instruction format 1200 maybe used to extend the x86 instruction set, and thus some of the fieldsare similar or the same as those used in the existing x86 instructionset and extension thereof (e.g., AVX). This format remains consistentwith the prefix encoding field, real opcode byte field, MOD R/M field,SIB field, displacement field, and immediate fields of the existing x86instruction set with extensions. The fields from FIG. 12 into which thefields from FIG. 13 map are illustrated.

It should be understood that, although embodiments of the invention aredescribed with reference to the specific vector friendly instructionformat 1200 in the context of the generic vector friendly instructionformat 1100 for illustrative purposes, the invention is not limited tothe specific vector friendly instruction format 1200 except whereclaimed. For example, the generic vector friendly instruction format1100 contemplates a variety of possible sizes for the various fields,while the specific vector friendly instruction format 1200 is shown ashaving fields of specific sizes. By way of specific example, while thedata element width field 1164 is illustrated as a one bit field in thespecific vector friendly instruction format 1200, the invention is notso limited (that is, the generic vector friendly instruction format 1100contemplates other sizes of the data element width field 1164).

The generic vector friendly instruction format 1100 includes thefollowing fields listed below in the order illustrated in FIG. 13A.

EVEX Prefix (Bytes 0-3) 1202—is encoded in a four-byte form.

Format Field 1140 (EVEX Byte 0, bits [7:0])—the first byte (EVEX Byte 0)is the format field 1140 and it contains 0x62 (the unique value used fordistinguishing the vector friendly instruction format in one embodimentof the invention).

The second-fourth bytes (EVEX Bytes 1-3) include a number of bit fieldsproviding specific capability.

REX field 1205 (EVEX Byte 1, bits [7-5])—consists of a EVEX.R bit field(EVEX Byte 1, bit [7]-R), EVEX.X bit field (EVEX byte 1, bit [6]-X), and1157BEX byte 1, bit[5]-B). The EVEX.R, EVEX.X, and EVEX.B bit fieldsprovide the same functionality as the corresponding VEX bit fields, andare encoded using 1s complement form, i.e. ZMM0 is encoded as 1111B,ZMM15 is encoded as 0000B. Other fields of the instructions encode thelower three bits of the register indexes as is known in the art (rrr,xxx, and bbb), so that Rrrr, Xxxx, and Bbbb may be formed by addingEVEX.R, EVEX.X, and EVEX.B.

REX′ field 1110—this is the first part of the REX′ field 1110 and is theEVEX.R′ bit field (EVEX Byte 1, bit [4]-R′) that is used to encodeeither the upper 16 or lower 16 of the extended 32 register set. In oneembodiment of the invention, this bit, along with others as indicatedbelow, is stored in bit inverted format to distinguish (in thewell-known x86 32-bit mode) from the BOUND instruction, whose realopcode byte is 62, but does not accept in the MOD R/M field (describedbelow) the value of 11 in the MOD field; alternative embodiments of theinvention do not store this and the other indicated bits below in theinverted format. A value of 1 is used to encode the lower 16 registers.In other words, R′Rrrr is formed by combining EVEX.R′, EVEX.R, and theother RRR from other fields.

Opcode map field 1215 (EVEX byte 1, bits [3:0]-mmmm)—its content encodesan implied leading opcode byte (0F, 0F 38, or 0F 3).

Data element width field 1164 (EVEX byte 2, bit [7]-W)—is represented bythe notation EVEX.W. EVEX.W is used to define the granularity (size) ofthe datatype (either 32-bit data elements or 64-bit data elements).

EVEX.vvvv 1220 (EVEX Byte 2, bits [6:3]-vvvv)—the role of EVEX.vvvv mayinclude the following: 1) EVEX.vvvv encodes the first source registeroperand, specified in inverted (1 s complement) form and is valid forinstructions with 2 or more source operands; 2) EVEX.vvvv encodes thedestination register operand, specified in 1 s complement form forcertain vector shifts; or 3) EVEX.vvvv does not encode any operand, thefield is reserved and should contain 1111b. Thus, EVEX.vvvv field 1220encodes the 4 low-order bits of the first source register specifierstored in inverted (1 s complement) form. Depending on the instruction,an extra different EVEX bit field is used to extend the specifier sizeto 32 registers.

EVEX.U 1168 Class field (EVEX byte 2, bit [2]-U)—If EVEX.U=0, itindicates class A or EVEX.U0; if EVEX.U=1, it indicates class B orEVEX.U1.

Prefix encoding field 1225 (EVEX byte 2, bits [1:0]-pp)—providesadditional bits for the base operation field. In addition to providingsupport for the legacy SSE instructions in the EVEX prefix format, thisalso has the benefit of compacting the SIMD prefix (rather thanrequiring a byte to express the SIMD prefix, the EVEX prefix requiresonly 2 bits). In one embodiment, to support legacy SSE instructions thatuse a SIMD prefix (66H, F2H, F3H) in both the legacy format and in theEVEX prefix format, these legacy SIMD prefixes are encoded into the SIMDprefix encoding field; and at runtime are expanded into the legacy SIMDprefix prior to being provided to the decoder's PLA (so the PLA canexecute both the legacy and EVEX format of these legacy instructionswithout modification). Although newer instructions could use the EVEXprefix encoding field's content directly as an opcode extension, certainembodiments expand in a similar fashion for consistency but allow fordifferent meanings to be specified by these legacy SIMD prefixes. Analternative embodiment may redesign the PLA to support the 2 bit SIMDprefix encodings, and thus not require the expansion.

Alpha field 1152 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]-EH; also known as EVEX.EH,EVEX.rs, EVEX.RL, EVEX.write mask control, and EVEX.N; also illustratedwith a)—as previously described, this field is context specific.

Beta field 1154 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]-SSS, also known as EVEX.s₂₋₀,EVEX.r₂₋₀, EVEX.rr1, EVEX.LLO, EVEX.LLB; also illustrated with βββ)—aspreviously described, this field is context specific.

REX′ field 1110—this is the remainder of the REX′ field and is theEVEX.V′ bit field (EVEX Byte 3, bit [3]-V′) that may be used to encodeeither the upper 16 or lower 16 of the extended 32 register set. Thisbit is stored in bit inverted format. A value of 1 is used to encode thelower 16 registers. In other words, V′VVVV is formed by combiningEVEX.V′, EVEX.vvvv.

Write mask field 1170 (EVEX byte 3, bits [2:0]-kkk)—its contentspecifies the index of a register in the write mask registers aspreviously described. In one embodiment of the invention, the specificvalue EVEX.kkk=000 has a special behavior implying no write mask is usedfor the particular instruction (this may be implemented in a variety ofways including the use of a write mask hardwired to all ones or hardwarethat bypasses the masking hardware).

Real Opcode Field 1230 (Byte 4) is also known as the opcode byte. Partof the opcode is specified in this field.

MOD R/M Field 1240 (Byte 5) includes MOD field 1242, Reg field 1244, andR/M field 1246. As previously described, the MOD field's 1242 contentdistinguishes between memory access and non-memory access operations.The role of Reg field 1244 can be summarized to two situations: encodingeither the destination register operand or a source register operand, orbe treated as an opcode extension and not used to encode any instructionoperand. The role of R/M field 1246 may include the following: encodingthe instruction operand that references a memory address, or encodingeither the destination register operand or a source register operand.

Scale, Index, Base (SIB) Byte (Byte 6)—As previously described, thescale field's 1150 content is used for memory address generation.SIB.xxx 1254 and SIB.bbb 1256—the contents of these fields have beenpreviously referred to with regard to the register indexes Xxxx andBbbb.

Displacement field 1162A (Bytes 7-10)—when MOD field 1242 contains 10,bytes 7-10 are the displacement field 1162A, and it works the same asthe legacy 32-bit displacement (disp32) and works at byte granularity.

Displacement factor field 1162B (Byte 7)—when MOD field 1242 contains01, byte 7 is the displacement factor field 1162B. The location of thisfield is that same as that of the legacy x86 instruction set 8-bitdisplacement (disp8), which works at byte granularity. Since disp8 issign extended, it can only address between −128 and 127 bytes offsets;in terms of 64 byte cache lines, disp8 uses 8 bits that can be set toonly four really useful values −128, −64, 0, and 64; since a greaterrange is often needed, disp32 is used; however, disp32 requires 4 bytes.In contrast to disp8 and disp32, the displacement factor field 1162B isa reinterpretation of disp8; when using displacement factor field 1162B,the actual displacement is determined by the content of the displacementfactor field multiplied by the size of the memory operand access (N).This type of displacement is referred to as disp8*N. This reduces theaverage instruction length (a single byte of used for the displacementbut with a much greater range). Such compressed displacement is based onthe assumption that the effective displacement is multiple of thegranularity of the memory access, and hence, the redundant low-orderbits of the address offset do not need to be encoded. In other words,the displacement factor field 1162B substitutes the legacy x86instruction set 8-bit displacement. Thus, the displacement factor field1162B is encoded the same way as an x86 instruction set 8-bitdisplacement (so no changes in the ModRM/SIB encoding rules) with theonly exception that disp8 is overloaded to disp8*N. In other words,there are no changes in the encoding rules or encoding lengths but onlyin the interpretation of the displacement value by hardware (which needsto scale the displacement by the size of the memory operand to obtain abyte-wise address offset).

Immediate field 1172 operates as previously described.

Full Opcode Field

FIG. 13B is a block diagram illustrating the fields of the specificvector friendly instruction format 1200 that make up the full opcodefield 1174 according to one embodiment of the invention. Specifically,the full opcode field 1174 includes the format field 1140, the baseoperation field 1142, and the data element width (W) field 1164. Thebase operation field 1142 includes the prefix encoding field 1225, theopcode map field 1215, and the real opcode field 1230.

Register Index Field

FIG. 13C is a block diagram illustrating the fields of the specificvector friendly instruction format 1200 that make up the register indexfield 1144 according to one embodiment of the invention. Specifically,the register index field 1144 includes the REX field 1205, the REX′field 1210, the MODR/M.reg field 1244, the MODR/M.r/m field 1246, theVVVV field 1220, xxx field 1254, and the bbb field 1256.

Augmentation Operation Field

FIG. 13D is a block diagram illustrating the fields of the specificvector friendly instruction format 1200 that make up the augmentationoperation field 1150 according to one embodiment of the invention. Whenthe class (U) field 1168 contains 0, it signifies EVEX.U0 (class A1168A); when it contains 1, it signifies EVEX.U1 (class B 1168B). WhenU=0 and the MOD field 1242 contains 11 (signifying a no memory accessoperation), the alpha field 1152 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]-EH) isinterpreted as the rs field 1152A. When the rs field 1152A contains a 1(round 1152A.1), the beta field 1154 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]-SSS) isinterpreted as the round control field 1154A. The round control field1154A includes a one bit SAE field 1156 and a two bit round operationfield 1158. When the rs field 1152A contains a 0 (data transform1152A.2), the beta field 1154 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]-SSS) isinterpreted as a three bit data transform field 1154B. When U=0 and theMOD field 1242 contains 00, 01, or 10 (signifying a memory accessoperation), the alpha field 1152 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]-EH) isinterpreted as the eviction hint (EH) field 1152B and the beta field1154 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]-SSS) is interpreted as a three bit datamanipulation field 1154C.

When U=1, the alpha field 1152 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]-EH) is interpretedas the write mask control (Z) field 1152C. When U=1 and the MOD field1242 contains 11 (signifying a no memory access operation), part of thebeta field 1154 (EVEX byte 3, bit [4]-S₀) is interpreted as the RL field1157A; when it contains a 1 (round 1157A.1) the rest of the beta field1154 (EVEX byte 3, bit [6-5]-S₂₋₁) is interpreted as the round operationfield 1159A, while when the RL field 1157A contains a 0 (VSIZE 1157.A2)the rest of the beta field 1154 (EVEX byte 3, bit [6-5]-S₂₋₁) isinterpreted as the vector length field 1159B (EVEX byte 3, bit[6-5]-L₁₋₀). When U=1 and the MOD field 1242 contains 00, 01, or 10(signifying a memory access operation), the beta field 1154 (EVEX byte3, bits [6:4]-SSS) is interpreted as the vector length field 1159B (EVEXbyte 3, bit [6-5]-L₁₋₀) and the broadcast field 1157B (EVEX byte 3, bit[4]-B).

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a register architecture 1300 according toone embodiment of the invention. In the embodiment illustrated, thereare 32 vector registers 1310 that are 512 bits wide; these registers arereferenced as zmm0 through zmm31. The lower order 256 bits of the lower16 zmm registers are overlaid on registers ymm0-16. The lower order 128bits of the lower 16 zmm registers (the lower order 128 bits of the ymmregisters) are overlaid on registers xmm0-15. The specific vectorfriendly instruction format 1200 operates on these overlaid registerfile as illustrated in the below tables.

Adjustable Vector Length Class Operations Registers Instruction A (FIG.11A; 1110, 1115, zmm registers Templates that U = 0) 1125, 1130 (thevector do not include length is 64 byte) the vector length B (FIG. 11B;1112 zmm registers field 1159B U = 1) (the vector length is 64 byte)Instruction B (FIG. 11B; 1117, 1127 zmm, ymm, or Templates that U = 1)xmm registers do include the (the vector vector length length is 64byte, field 1159B 32 byte, or 16 byte) depending on the vector lengthfield 1159B

In other words, the vector length field 1159B selects between a maximumlength and one or more other shorter lengths, where each such shorterlength is half the length of the preceding length; and instructionstemplates without the vector length field 1159B operate on the maximumvector length. Further, in one embodiment, the class B instructiontemplates of the specific vector friendly instruction format 1200operate on packed or scalar single/double-precision floating point dataand packed or scalar integer data. Scalar operations are operationsperformed on the lowest order data element position in an zmm/ymm/xmmregister; the higher order data element positions are either left thesame as they were prior to the instruction or zeroed depending on theembodiment.

Write mask registers 1315—in the embodiment illustrated, there are 8write mask registers (k0 through k7), each 64 bits in size. In analternate embodiment, the write mask registers 1315 are 16 bits in size.As previously described, in one embodiment of the invention, the vectormask register k0 cannot be used as a write mask; when the encoding thatwould normally indicate k0 is used for a write mask, it selects ahardwired write mask of 0xFFFF, effectively disabling write masking forthat instruction.

General-purpose registers 1325—in the embodiment illustrated, there aresixteen 64-bit general-purpose registers that are used along with theexisting x86 addressing modes to address memory operands. Theseregisters are referenced by the names RAX, RBX, RCX, RDX, RBP, RSI, RDI,RSP, and R8 through R15.

Scalar floating point stack register file (x87 stack) 1345, on which isaliased the MMX packed integer flat register file 1350—in the embodimentillustrated, the x87 stack is an eight-element stack used to performscalar floating-point operations on 32/64/80-bit floating point datausing the x87 instruction set extension; while the MMX registers areused to perform operations on 64-bit packed integer data, as well as tohold operands for some operations performed between the MMX and XMMregisters.

Alternative embodiments of the invention may use wider or narrowerregisters. Additionally, alternative embodiments of the invention mayuse more, less, or different register files and registers.

An Exemplary Computer System

FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary clients and serverswhich may be used in some embodiments of the invention. It should beunderstood that while FIG. 15 illustrates various components of acomputer system 1500, it is not intended to represent any particulararchitecture or manner of interconnecting the components as such detailsare not germane to the embodiments of the invention. It will beappreciated that other computer systems that have fewer components ormore components may also be used with the embodiments of invention.

As illustrated in FIG. 15, the computer system 1500, which is a form ofa data processing system, includes the interconnect(s)/bus(es) 1501communicatively coupling the processor cluster(s) 804 to the variousother system components. The interconnects/buses may include variouslevels of interconnection which may be connected to each other throughvarious bridges, controllers, and/or adapters as is well known in theart. By way of example, the interconnect(s) 1501 may include a quickpath interconnect (QPI) component, a Peripheral Component InterconnectExpress (“PCI Express”) component, or other technologies forinterconnecting the various components to the processor cluster(s) 804.The underlying principles of the invention are not limited to anyparticular interconnects or buses.

Although illustrated as a separate component in FIG. 15, theaccelerator(s) 801 may be integrated within the processor cluster(s)804. Alternatively, some accelerator(s) may be integrated within theprocessor cluster(s) and some may be connected to the computer systemvia the interconnect(s)/bus(es). As described in detail above, theaccelerators are adapted to efficiently execute certain types of programcode (e.g., vector/SIMD operations, graphics operations, sort and loopoperations, etc). By way of example, the general purpose processorclusters 804 may include execution logic within a processor core forexecuting general purpose instructions such as x86 instructionsincluding instructions which invoke commands on the accelerator clusters801. The underlying principles of the invention, however, are notlimited to any particular type of general purpose clusters oraccelerator clusters.

The embodiment illustrated in FIG. 15 also includes a memory interface1520 for coupling memory modules 1525 computer system. In oneembodiment, the memory modules 1525 are dual in-line memory modules(DIMMs) such as random access memory (RAM) modules and the memoryinterface may generate the electrical signaling required to access thememory modules 1525 (e.g., such as column address strobe (CAS), rowaddress strobe (RAS), write enable (WE), and output enable (OE)signals).

In one embodiment, the memory interface 1520 comprises logic andcircuitry for interfacing with different types of memory modulesincluding volatile memory modules such as RAM and non-volatile memorymodules such as Phase-Change Memory (PCM), also sometimes referred to asphase change random access memory (PRAM or PCRAM), PCME, Ovonic UnifiedMemory, or Chalcogenide RAM (C-RAM). For example, one embodiment of thecomputer system 1500 implements a two-level (2L) memory hierarchycomprising a “near memory” portion which may be a volatile memory suchas RAM and a “far memory” portion which may be implemented as aPhase-Change Memory (PCM). In such a case, the memory interface mayinclude the logic and circuitry required to access both memory types.

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes one or more storageinterfaces 1518 for interfacing with storage devices such as hard drivesor other non-volatile storage devices. In one embodiment, the storageinterface 1518 comprises a serial ATA storage interface and the harddrive comprises a solid state drive (SSD) or a magnetic storage device.In an embodiment of the invention which uses 2LM memory (as discussedabove), a portion of the storage on the storage device 1519 may be usedfor “far memory” (or a portion of “far memory”).

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes a graphics interface 1502for interfacing with one or more graphics processing units 1503. TheGPUs may be embedded on a motherboard of the computer system or on aseparate card inserted in the motherboard (e.g., via a PCI expressgraphics interface, or other high speed graphics interface). A videooutput interface 1504 such as a digital video interface (DVI),High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), or DisplayPort video outputinterface outputs a video stream to a monitor 1505 which renders videofor the end user. As mentioned, the GPUs may be implemented asaccelerator components for executing graphics program code using any ofthe embodiments described herein.

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes an audio input interface1516 for receiving multiple digital and analog audio inputs. Forexample, a microphone may be coupled to one of the audio inputinterfaces to capture the user's voice (e.g., during Web chats, phonecalls, or for recording audio). Additionally, a digital audio input maybe used such as a Toslink interface.

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes a sensor hub 1515 forcollecting data from various different system sensors 1509. By way ofexample, and not limitation, the sensors 1509 may include mechanicalsensors, motion sensors, and location sensors to detect a position andorientation of the computer system 1500. For example, in one embodiment,the sensors may include multi-axis accelerometers for detectingacceleration values along the X, Y, and Z axes and reporting to the datato the sensor hub. The sensor hub may then perform calculations todetermine a current orientation of the computer system 1500. Forexample, if the computer system is a notebook computer, the sensor hubmay detect a current position of the computer monitor. The sensors 1509may also include inertial sensors for detecting displacements from areference location and/or proximity sensors for detecting proximity to auser or other device. In one embodiment, the sensors 1509 include aglobal positioning system (GPS) sensor or other sensor for determiningthe current global position of the computer system. The sensors 1509 mayalso include a magnetometer for detecting the orientation of the Earth'selectric field (i.e., to determine a current position of the computingsystem relative to North). The sensors 1509 may also include a gyro fordetecting changes in orientation and an ambient light sensor fordetecting current lighting conditions (e.g., so that the sensor hub orother system component may responsively adjust the brightness of themonitor 1505).

All of the data collected from the various sensors 1509 may be used todetermine a current mode of operation and responsively adjust operationof the computing device 1500. For example, in response to the signalsfrom the sensors 1509 the computing device may enter into a first modeof operation in which in which the accelerator invocations describedherein are enabled and a second mode of operation in which theaccelerator invocations described herein are disabled.

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes a camera interface 1514for coupling to a video camera usable to capture motion video and stillpictures. For example, in one embodiment, the camera interface 1514gathers motion video for video conferencing applications in which theaccelerator invocation techniques described herein may be used. Forexample, one accelerator may be configured to efficiently encode videostreams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It should be noted, however,that the underlying principles of the invention are not limited to anyparticular video compression format.

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes a serial bus interface forestablishing serial data communication with connected devices (e.g.,mobile phones, tablets, printers, external cameras, MIDI devices, etc).This embodiment further includes an Ethernet interface 1512 forestablishing network connections over an Ethernet network and a cellularinterface 1511 for establishing voice and data connections over acellular network using cellular communication protocols. Variouscellular technologies may be employed including, but not limited to 3rdGeneration Partnership Project technologies (e.g., 3GPP2) code divisionmultiple access technologies (e.g., CDMA2000 technology using1xRTT/EVDO/eHRPD); Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology and/orLTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technology; and Universal Mobile TelecommunicationsSystem (UMTS) technology such as WCDMA/TDSCDMA. In addition, theembodiment shown also includes a WiFi and/or Bluetooth interface 1510for establishing communication over WiFi channels (e.g., 802.11channels) and/or Bluetooth channels, respectively. Each of the Ethernet,Cellular, and WiFi communication interfaces include a transceiver andother circuitry for generating analog transmission signals using theappropriate technology. In one embodiment, an accelerator may also beinvoked to support the network communication process (e.g., forperforming network baseband functions such as data encoding).

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes a power managementinterface 1517 for detecting current conditions within the computersystem (e.g., thermal, power usage, battery life, etc) and responsivelyadjusting power usage to each of the different system components. Forexample, under certain conditions, the power management interface 1517may turn off the accelerator functions described herein to conservepower (e.g., when the battery drops below a threshold value).

The illustrated embodiment 1500 also includes a power managementinterface 1517 may also include various different types of Input/Outputdevices such as a cursor control (e.g., mouse, touchscreen, touchpad,etc.), a keyboard, etc.) for receiving user input.

It will be appreciated that additional components, not shown in FIG. 15,may also be a part of the data processing system 1500 in certainembodiments of the invention, and in certain embodiments of theinvention fewer components than shown in FIG. 15 may be used. Inaddition, it will be appreciated that one or more buses and/orinterconnects, not shown in FIG. 15, may be used to interconnect thevarious components as is well known in the art.

Embodiments of the invention may include various steps, which have beendescribed above. The steps may be embodied in machine-executableinstructions which may be used to cause a general-purpose orspecial-purpose processor to perform the steps. Alternatively, thesesteps may be performed by specific hardware components that containhardwired logic for performing the steps, or by any combination ofprogrammed computer components and custom hardware components.

As described herein, instructions may refer to specific configurationsof hardware such as application specific integrated circuits (ASICs)configured to perform certain operations or having a predeterminedfunctionality or software instructions stored in memory embodied in anon-transitory computer readable medium. Thus, the techniques shown inthe figures can be implemented using code and data stored and executedon one or more electronic devices (e.g., an end station, a networkelement, etc.). Such electronic devices store and communicate(internally and/or with other electronic devices over a network) codeand data using computer machine-readable media, such as non-transitorycomputer machine-readable storage media (e.g., magnetic disks; opticaldisks; random access memory; read only memory; flash memory devices;phase-change memory) and transitory computer machine-readablecommunication media (e.g., electrical, optical, acoustical or other formof propagated signals—such as carrier waves, infrared signals, digitalsignals, etc.). In addition, such electronic devices typically include aset of one or more processors coupled to one or more other components,such as one or more storage devices (non-transitory machine-readablestorage media), user input/output devices (e.g., a keyboard, atouchscreen, and/or a display), and network connections. The coupling ofthe set of processors and other components is typically through one ormore busses and bridges (also termed as bus controllers). The storagedevice and signals carrying the network traffic respectively representone or more machine-readable storage media and machine-readablecommunication media. Thus, the storage device of a given electronicdevice typically stores code and/or data for execution on the set of oneor more processors of that electronic device. Of course, one or moreparts of an embodiment of the invention may be implemented usingdifferent combinations of software, firmware, and/or hardware.Throughout this detailed description, for the purposes of explanation,numerous specific details were set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, toone skilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without someof these specific details. In certain instances, well known structuresand functions were not described in elaborate detail in order to avoidobscuring the subject matter of the present invention. Accordingly, thescope and spirit of the invention should be judged in terms of theclaims which follow.

What is claimed is:
 1. A processor comprising: a command register forstoring command data identifying a command to be executed; a resultregister to store a result of the command or data indicating a reasonwhy the command could not be executed; execution logic to execute aplurality of instructions including an accelerator invocationinstruction to invoke one or more accelerator commands, the acceleratorinvocation instruction to store command data specifying the commandwithin the command register; one or more accelerators to read thecommand data from the command register and responsively attempt toexecute the command identified by the command data, wherein if the oneor more accelerators successfully execute the command, the one or moreaccelerators are to store result data comprising the results of thecommand in the result register; and if the one or more acceleratorscannot successfully execute the command, the one or more acceleratorsare to store result data indicating a reason why the command cannot beexecuted, wherein the execution logic is to temporarily halt executionuntil the accelerator completes execution or is interrupted, wherein theaccelerator includes logic to store its state if interrupted so that itcan continue execution at a later time.
 2. The processor as in claim 1wherein the command register and result register are general purposeregisters (GPRs) within a GPR file of a processor core.
 3. The processoras in claim 1 wherein the execution logic comprises x86 execution logic.4. The processor as in claim 1 wherein the execution logic and the oneor more accelerators are contained within a single processor core. 5.The processor as in claim 1 wherein, if the one or more acceleratorscannot successfully execute the command, the one or more acceleratorsstore result data indicating whether a subsequent attempt to execute thesame command will be unsuccessful.
 6. The processor as in claim 5wherein the result data comprising a bit, wherein a first value of thebit indicates that a subsequent attempt to execute the same command willbe unsuccessful and a second value of the bit indicates that asubsequent attempt to execute the same command may be successful.
 7. Theprocessor as in claim 6 wherein a subsequent instruction reads the bitto determine whether to attempt to execute the same command.
 8. Theprocessor as in claim 6 wherein the result data includes a result codeindicating a specific reason for the failure to execute the command. 9.The processor as in claim 1 further comprising: a parameter register tostore parameters associated with the command, the one or moreaccelerators reading the parameters to execute the command.
 10. Theprocessor as in claim 1 wherein at least one of the acceleratorscomprises a fixed function accelerator.
 11. The processor as in claim 1wherein at least one of the accelerators comprises a programmablefunction accelerator.
 12. The processor as in claim 1 wherein thecommand register is to store an identification code to identify one ofthe accelerators to execute the command.
 13. A computer-implementedmethod comprising: storing command data in a command register toidentify a command to be executed; storing a result of the command ordata indicating a reason why the command could not be executed in aresult register; executing a plurality of instructions including anaccelerator invocation instruction to invoke one or more acceleratorcommands, the accelerator invocation instruction to store command dataspecifying the command within the command register; reading the commanddata from the command register, wherein one or more acceleratorsresponsively attempt to execute the command identified by the commanddata, wherein if the one or more accelerators successfully execute thecommand, the one or more accelerators are to store result datacomprising the results of the command in the result register; and if theone or more accelerators cannot successfully execute the command, theone or more accelerators are to store result data indicating a reasonwhy the command cannot be executed, wherein the execution logic is totemporarily halt execution until the accelerator completes execution oris interrupted, wherein the accelerator includes logic to store itsstate if interrupted so that it can continue execution at a later time.14. The method as in claim 13 wherein the command register and resultregister are general purpose registers (GPRs) within a GPR file of aprocessor core.
 15. The method as in claim 13 wherein the executionlogic comprises x86 execution logic.
 16. The method as in claim 13wherein the execution logic and the one or more accelerators arecontained within a single processor core.
 17. The method as in claim 13wherein, if the one or more accelerators cannot successfully execute thecommand, the one or more accelerators store result data indicatingwhether a subsequent attempt to execute the same command will beunsuccessful.
 18. The method as in claim 17 wherein the result datacomprising a bit, wherein a first value of the bit indicates that asubsequent attempt to execute the same command will be unsuccessful anda second value of the bit indicates that a subsequent attempt to executethe same command may be successful.
 19. The method as in claim 18wherein a subsequent instruction reads the bit to determine whether toattempt to execute the same command.
 20. The method as in claim 18wherein the result data includes a result code indicating a specificreason for the failure to execute the command.
 21. The method as inclaim 13 further comprising: storing parameters associated with thecommand in a parameter register, the one or more accelerators readingthe parameters to execute the command.
 22. The method as in claim 13wherein at least one of the accelerators comprises a fixed functionaccelerator.
 23. The method as in claim 13 wherein at least one of theaccelerators comprises a programmable function accelerator.
 24. Themethod as in claim 13 wherein the command register is to store anidentification code to identify one of the accelerators to execute thecommand.